Lake Street Dive

Lake Street Dive seem to have a band motto. Not a lot of bands do that because not a lot of bands should do that but in their case, it works. That’s because it’s a simple, yet precise description of the band and their music, it’s simply “two girls, two guys, and a whole lotta feelings”. It sums up the basic idea of the band pretty well, what it doesn’t cover is their delectable indie-soul sensibilities or the way they’ve built themselves up the most natural way that they could.

The four members began playing together in 2004, but the origins of the band begin a year later. Double bassist Bridget Kearney wrote a song that the band performed for the John Lennon Songwriting contest, and promptly won in the Jazz category. They won a cash prize and 1000 CD’s pressed, which led to them independently releasing their first album “In This Episode…” in 2006.

The band performed and recorded intermittently over the next four years, recording another album entitled “Promises, Promises” in the interim. They even signed to Signature Sounds Recordings in 2011, but it wasn’t until one year later that they decided to make a strong commitment to the band, and finally went on tour. When I say they toured, I mean it, we’re talking 150 shows in 2013 alone.

This was done in the midst of recording their 2014 album “Bad Self Portraits”. Along with a viral video of them covering The Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” around a single microphone on a Boston street corner that’s got 2 million views on Youtube and counting, this looks set to take them to the next level. It’s already got the band slots performing on The Late Show with David Letterman, The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Colbert Report and the only way seems to be up from there.

Lake Street Dive are truly unique, and richly deserving of any and every bit of attention that they can get. Highly recommended.